Electronic circuits and systems often communicate with one another via a communication bus. One type of communication bus is the inter-integrated circuit bus (I2C bus). The 120 bus provides a communication link between integrated circuits (ICs) and electronic systems. Traditionally, an I2C bus consists of a master device and one or more slave devices.
Conventional 120 bus communication performs well when the slave device(s) are physically close to the master device and connected using wires.
However, when the distance between the slave device(s) and the master device is increased using a wireless repeater, a latency is introduced. For write operations, the latency typically does not affect performance. However, for read operations, the latency greatly reduces the performance of the bus because the master device must wait to receive the data requested. Sometimes the latency during a read is mistaken for malicious activity on the bus and causes the bus to become inoperable.
A bus buffer may be used when cables provide the physical connection and the distance is limited to a few meters. However, some applications need to traverse a greater distance and in other cases, the physical connection may even be wireless. Therefore, other solutions are needed.